


a slight of hand

by poludeuces



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: M/M, are they dating who knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24934669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poludeuces/pseuds/poludeuces
Summary: moriarty asks babbage to step out of his mech
Relationships: Charles Babbage | Caster/James Moriarty | Archer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	a slight of hand

**Author's Note:**

> there's no warnings for this one! just that it follows the idea that there's a guy in babbage's mech, he just chooses not to leave it. which, mood,

If he were discussing maths or hypothetical problems, then perhaps his company would not annoy him so much. Even if he was discussing Frankenstein's current updates then he would be happier.

Yet, instead, Professor Moriarty once again tries to draw him out of his armour.

“No one will be able to see you at this time of night,” he leans against the bar. He’s dressed in his bartender outfit, dazzling blues that shine like his sapphire eyes.

They are at a small bar operated by some of the other servants—Hector, Paracelsus to name a few—but for the most part, if you peeked your head in you would find Moriarty behind the bar, serving drinks with a smile.

Babbage had not expected Moriarty of all people to be Chaldea's bartender. Honestly it felt beneath him. 

“I don’t know why you do it,” he had told him.

Moriarty had simply responded with a smirk, one that had been etched into Babbage’s soul, “You’d be amazed at how quickly people share their secrets with a trust-worthy bartender.”

Babbage had done his best not to see this extraction in person, despite Moriarty’s best attempts to get him to visit the bar. He had no interest in interacting with other servants in Chaldea, needed not alcohol. It was only through the promise of being completely alone that he agreed to come.

“You said you needed help,” Babbage responds. Was that not the reason why he had asked for his presence in the first place?

“And that help requires you to hop out of your suit!” Moriarty presses his palms down against the bar and looks up at him expectantly. They’ve seen each other so much now that he knows exactly where to look to stare into Babbage’s eyes through his suit.

“Tell me what you need.”

Moriarty slumps back down onto the bar, his cheek up against the smooth countertop. “It’s a surprise…”

“We both know I do not care for your surprises, Professor,” Babbage reminds him. He could go on for hours of the terrible situations Moriarty had put him into that had started out as a ‘surprise’.

“Your hands need to be available.”

Babbage reaches up and his large, robotic fingers outstretch. With new casters joining Chaldea, he had gotten some help with modifications on the fingers. While rock was not a medium he worked in—no, he worked in metal and steam, the building blocks of the future—he had appreciated studying Avicebron’s rock golems for future possible modifications.

“Here, my hands are yours,” Babbage offers. Moriarty reaches out and traces lines along his palm. Receptors tell him the path of Moriarty’s fingers, but the feeling is duller—why must he feel extreme pain when hit? It’s a necessary disconnect.

“I need your _feel_ ,” Moriarty continues, his fingers dipping into the well of his palm.

“I can turn up the receptors if you wish.” Babbage’s other hand flutters up to adjust settings.

“No, I want you to feel the real thing.” 

His smirk is back—Babbage wonders what he schemes of now.

He knows of his persistence, and how he continues until he gets his way. If not tonight, then maybe tomorrow. If not through his words, then perhaps through Frankenstein. If not through Babbage’s wish to make Moriarty happy, then through a trade for something else, or if he’s willing (and he is), maybe blackmail. He is not the Napoleon of crime if he quits at the first sign of failure.

“If someone comes into the bar, I will turn you into a gold cube in two seconds.”

Moriarty’s smile grows—a smile of victory. “Two seconds? The effectiveness of steam.”

“I’m sure with some modifications I could drop that time.”

He makes Moriarty lock the doors and put up a sign that reads ‘bar’s CLOSED!’ just in case.

Moriarty has seen him step out of his mech many a time. He’s even been inside, his body pressed flush against Babbage’s while he does modifications. But his eyes follow Babbage carefully as he exits. 

He knows how to get out easily, he’s done this many a time. His feet know where to stand without him thinking of it. But, Moriarty’s eyes on his descent make him clumsy, and he has to hold himself so he doesn’t fall.

He awkwardly sits on a bar stool close to Moriarty. 

“Shall I make you a drink?” 

Babbage shakes his head—he wishes to return to the comfortableness of his own mech soon. “Be quick.”

Moriarty releases a soft sigh, but it’s gone in an instant. He knows how much he’s been given. “I need your hands, remember?”

So, Babbage outstretches his palms, and Moriarty takes them greedily. Babbage jumps. Moriarty chuckles.

“You’re so used to having the receptors so low,” Moriarty comments. His thumbs rub the tops of Babbage’s hands softly. Greed clouds his eyes. 

It does feel weird—he’s rarely touched so much, without a wall of metal and steam to cut away parts of his touch. It takes everything for him not to pull his hands away and crawl back up into his suit.

“Get on with it,” Babbage’s snappiness cuts through his words.

Moriarty raises an eyebrow, “Get to what?”

Babbage furrows his brow. “Whatever you needed my help with. Go, do it.”

The smirk returns. 

He has won.

“This _is_ it,” he replies.

“… The help…that you needed from me… was to hold my hands?” 

Moriarty smiles and tilts his head to the side, “Is it too much to ask to hold my partner’s hands?” He presses weight to the word ‘partner’, one that Babbage has heard Moriarty call him many a time, so that the word carries a much deeper meaning now.

Heat hotter than any steam engine floods to Babbage’s cheeks and he pulls back to press against the back of the barstool. “No, no, that’s,” he struggles to find words. He can feel Moriarty’s smile.

He tries to pull his hands away but Moriarty’s grip is tight—did he not have arthritis or something? But the feeling is strong—the grasp reminding him that Moriarty wants _him_. 

“No pulling away, you said you would help me out,” Moriarty reminds him. His thumb rubs over Babbage’s knuckles.

It does not feel bad, of course, it’s just slightly overwhelming. He is not used to someone’s hands on his, even being out of his mech, anyone being able to see his reactions… And he knows Moriarty is lapping it up, happy to be the only one to see his face, his movements. 

“Just…a little bit longer then.”

Moriarty leans against the bar and repeats, “Just a little longer.”

\--

“See? My hypothesis is correct,” Moriarty proclaims. 

They are doing something Babbage actually enjoys—making modifications to the mech. It’s his legs this time—he refuses to get out.

Babbage raises an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”

Moriarty lifts up a finger and wiggles it, “People are quick to trust their bartender.”

“I don’t see how you’ve proved that.”

Moriarty smiles and holds his hands out, “Did you not let me hold your hands? And even then, were you not trusting of me to help me out in the first place?”

Babbage bites his lip. If he had not, he would have proclaimed that the bartender dress-up was not the reason, but rather Moriarty himself, but either way he admits how Moriarty’s words bend him. 

He’s lost either way.

“That may need to be peer-reviewed. I will ask Hector next time I see him.”

The look Moriarty gives him is priceless. 

He’s won this battle.

**Author's Note:**

> shout out to mininephthys for single handedly rowing this ship.
> 
> sorry if this is ooc


End file.
